Caller Identification is information delivered at the start of a telephone call about the calling party. This information generally consists of the calling number and the calling name. Caller identification is generally made available by your carrier for a small monthly fee.

Many subscribers use the service in conjunction with caller identification enabled telephones to identify and block annoying callers and respond to missed calls,.

Many software companies now offer creative solutions that incorporate caller identification into contact relationship management. Caller identification is utilized to retrieve files or information about callers prior to answering the call. These solutions are known as Screen Pop applications.

Business calls are usually linked with information that exists in your database software or contact management applications, such as Access, Outlook, Act!, Maximizer, Goldmine or even a unique in-house custom application. As an example, a travel agency with a proprietary customer database could use Screen Pop to retrieve data at every agents desktop and access the details of each customers travel plans.

Often call handling rules are created based on caller identification routing tables. Business communication servers (or telephone systems) can perform time consuming telephony functions (including answer, conference, hold, park and transfer) based on the caller identification information.

Caller identification software is not foolproof. Many businesses have many telephone lines. This is troublesome for caller identification software that must keep a library of all the lines in order to perform proper screen pops. Recently caller identification spoofing has started creeping into mainstream. Spoofing allows people to masquerade their caller identification as anyone else. Many cellular telephones and international callers are often reported as unknown.

Even though caller identification cannot be 100% reliable in all circumstances, creative software solutions are increasing productivity in call center and customer service environments.